Where did 420 originate? It started about half a century ago. When 420 became part of the public vocabulary, it ultimately evolved into a global celebration of cannabis and its culture. What began as a slang term among California high schoolers is now an internationally celebrated expression covering everything from the plant and its social use to the multibillion-dollar industry it has sustained globally.
The 2020 Year 420 Celebration
This year is like no other, and there are more incentives to rejoice in mainstreaming cannabis and cannabis culture. After all, cannabis usage in some form is now the standard in all states except two, and adult-use cannabis is even legal in 17 states, plus the District of Columbia. Moreover, states are supposed to completely legalize cannabis in the following couple of years as the legalized cannabis industry maintains its sudden climb approaching an $84 billion industry by 2028.
If ever was there a time to celebrate cannabis, this year’s April 20 celebration certainly is it. But that doesn’t mean everyone is participating in the party. Just because more states are legalizing the adult use of cannabis, stigmatism and confusion continue to encompass the plant and its use, thanks to decades of discriminatory War on Drugs propaganda.
So it’s crucial for those in the cannabis industry – and even in the more significant cannabis culture – to teach others what cannabis is, particularly those living in current adult-use states who might not immediately know anything about it.
Cannabis (420) Is Simply A Plant.
Despite the past years of showing the movie Reefer Madness propaganda from law enforcement and other vociferous prohibitionists, there’s no avoiding the plain facts about why cannabis is called weed. It’s because it’s just a plant.
Admittedly, it is a remarkable plant and a botanical variety that people have grown for over 2,500 years or more. But also a plant with applications that extend from medical to recreational and even industrial.
And as more study is conducted on its medical qualities, cannabis’s potential to help individual health seems excitingly encouraging on many fronts today.
But it’s worth noting – and primarily for those who genuinely worry about its increased use – that cannabis does not lead to drug-crazed criminality or vacant-eyed lethargy long stereotyped by those who objected to it.
In a reasonably new Reason Foundation analysis, the libertarian think tank concluded that adult-use legalization doesn’t cause an escalation in crime the way law enforcement has suggested since the first part of the 20th century and the inception U.S. drug war.
The report even revealed that many states underwent a drop in DUIs once the state legalized medical cannabis programs in those states. Other studies have published similar conclusions.
And the stoner-on-the-couch stereotype? It’s another tale, according to both the University of Miami’s Herbert Business School and the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. Researchers from those groups examined data from a national health survey of more than 20,000 people, following them from their teen years in 1994 until 2018.
The cannabis users, researchers discovered, exercised just as much as non-cannabis users. And some even exercised more, demonstrating what many cannabis users previously knew: that smoking a joint sometimes leads to burning fat.
It Offers Multiple Purposes.
Grow fruits or vegetables, and you’ll have food to eat. Grow cotton, and you can make your clothing. Grow trees for lumber, and you’ll build a sturdy dwelling. And if you grow a willow tree and use its bark, you’ll have an approved health substance called aspirin that will reduce pain and decrease inflammation.
But if you grow just one plant – cannabis – then you can have all of this and more. Sure, it’s still simply a plant, but cannabis’s functional applications run the scale from hemp-based paper products to construction materials that rival wood and concrete and mature in four short months.
It also can be used for sustainably produced clothing that has four times the strength of cotton and shields against U.V. rays. It is seen as a remarkably viable plant used in soil remediation and purifying growing substrates used by multiple crops.
It Has Medicinal Qualities.
Of course, the medical aspect of cannabis for a variety of treatments. Even though a broad multitude of cannabis users and advocates turn to this remarkable plant for recreation and pleasure, an ever-increasing number of users realize that cannabis can be the solution to healthier living. They use it to help with unfavorable health disorders ranging from epilepsy to PTSD, anxiety to Alzheimer’s, and much more.
The efficacy of cannabis to be used efficiently in treating conditions such as inflammation, anxiety, and insomnia has been the primary intention. CBD has grown into the supplement giant it is today, hauling in $1.6 billion in revenue.
Cannabidiol users don’t fancy any of the euphoric influences for which cannabis is often stigmatized. But that matters little to the one-third of Americans who now use this legal supplement to address a spectrum of health and wellness problems.
Where Did 420 Originate | THC | CBD
CBD may be the most basic cannabis abbreviation for the overall population because of its universal legality. In any case, an expanding number of states legalizing adult use of cannabis may raise the general opinion of its better-known and condemned relative cannabinoid, THC.
Because of the rising mainstreaming of cannabis nationwide, more research is starting to zero in on the medical advantages of THC, connecting psychoactive cannabis to possible results in treating numerous ailments, improving general pain and nausea to M.S., headaches, glaucoma, and anorexia.
Oddly, the plant’s medical benefits have started to be sufficiently understood, thanks largely to our expanding scientific understanding of another crucial cannabis-driven abbreviation: ECS.
The human body’s endocannabinoid framework was recently discovered (1988). However, analysts progressively see it as the essential controller of a significant part of the human body’s various physiological and cognitive processes.
Studies into these areas of human health and cannabis‘ relationship have an increasing approval to the developing acceptance of cannabis in the open arena and the decreased probabilities of criminal convictions that scientists have faced for such a long time.
Cannabis is anything but a Major Drug medication. Be that as it may, it is a promising medication for the general population who are just currently finding its capacity to improve an individual’s health and well-being. As more states sanction and cannabis become more standard, that understanding will evolve.
Less Risky
Our scientific understanding about the very ancient plant remains because of its misguided classification as a Schedule 1 substance by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, which has long associated it with hazardous drugs such as heroin and MDMA.
As long as cannabis has existed, Enemy No. 1 in the U.S. Drug War and the DEA regard it to have no medical benefit. Special licensing regulations and the ever-present peril of arrest and incarceration have highly restricted medical research.
Furthermore, the Controlled Substances Act classification has exemplified that banks and insurance companies have rejected legal cannabis businesses’ access enjoyed by virtually every other industry that employs workers, pays taxes, and contributes to their community.
Until cannabis’ Schedule 1 status reversals, though, states have taken it upon themselves to legalize a substance that many Americans now endorse. Today, 17 states have ratified cannabis use by adults, and 36 states, including D.C., Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, have legal, medical cannabis policies in place.
At the federal government level today, Congress considers ways to make banking simpler and insurance more convenient for the 20,000 to 28,000 legal cannabis companies now operating across the U.S. Some lawmakers raise the discussion about federal legalization. However, most observers believe that vision realistically remains years away from the decree.
Conclusion It’s Practical
States have legalized cannabis for adult use because their voters have favored it. They have done so because legal cannabis is undeniably a powerful revenue provider, with adult-use states drawing billions of dollars in revenue from double-digit taxation, multiple excise charges, and municipal taxes. And even states with medical-only agendas have also boosted hundreds of thousands of dollars yearly.
Tax Foundation, the independent tax policy research organization, explains that if non-legal states legalized and taxed cannabis. Potential revenues could be tremendous by reviewing Colorado’s 2019 rates as a comparison example. Alabama, for instance, could observe $102 million in annual excise tax revenue, while Texas would notice a Texas-sized $415 million.
States that have legalized adult-use cannabis have stimulated the most tax revenue. And it’s a lot of money for social projects and local schools, law-enforcement undertakings, and states’ spending funds. And all that financial assistance for the regional community comes from an industry that didn’t hesitate like others during an unprecedented global health pandemic.
Nor is it one facing any downside in the foreseeable future, as every analysis of the industry projects sky-high expansion in the future – and an increasing financial benefit for the states that legalize cannabis entirely.
The Confusion of Cannabis Legalization
What’s occurring with cannabis legalization in the U.S. is also reflected in Canada and Mexico. And numerous European countries are starting to broaden the legalization of medical and adult-use cannabis.
However, no matter how many beneficial advantages are presented for cannabis legalization or how many examples of states and nations legalizing it, there will always be several who don’t want to see it legally endorsed. Old prejudices are hard to conquer, and cannabis has concentrated on severe, state-sponsored discrimination for so long now.
But for those residing in states where the government prohibits adult use, there’s no need for panic or hostility as legalization endeavors arise. Today’s prohibitionists in cannabis-illegal states can’t say that legal cannabis brings more crime because it simply does not.
They wouldn’t recognize that their citizens don’t want it legalized because a majority does. And they can’t contend that cannabis has no health significance when an increasing body of scientific study and awareness is starting to demonstrate that cannabis has a strong potential to help many people with various adverse health ailments.
And today’s legal-use states also contribute excellent representations of how cannabis legalization and its mainstreaming can contribute to jobs and support fund state agendas. Simultaneously, it can empower people’s will and offer confidence to many enduring many health and wellness problems. The more we understand cannabis, the more critical it will be for all states to move toward full legalization, occurring more rapidly today than ever before. That’s a reason to cheer a simplistic plant with incredible benefits.
Thank you again for trusting Hemp Medical Benefits and allowing us to serve you. So please accept my genuine thank you. You are always welcome back.
Thanks,
Kevin
kevin@hempmedicalbenefits.com